1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a grommet that is mounted on a wire harness to be arranged in a motor vehicle and is installed in a through-hole in a vehicle body panel, and more particularly relates to a so-called one-motion grommet in which an inserting side end of a grommet is inserted into the through-hole at one side of the through-hole and the inserted part of the grommet is drawn out from the through-hole at other side of the through-hole and the grommet itself is moved to a given direction to be installed in the through-hole.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wire harness to be arranged from an engine room in a motor vehicle to a passenger room is threaded via a through-hole in a dash panel (or cowl panel) that partitions the passenger room from the engine room. In order to prevent water or dusts from entering the passenger room via the through-hole, a grommet integrally made of rubber or elastomer is mounted on the wire harness and a vehicle body engagement annular recess provided in the grommet is engaged with a peripheral edge around the through-hole.
An example of such a grommet has been provided. In the grommet, a smaller diameter tubular section of the grommet at an inserting end side is inserted into a through-hole in a vehicle body panel from an engine room side, the inserted smaller diameter tubular section is drawn at a passenger room side so that a diameter enlargement tubular section continued to the smaller diameter tubular section is inserted into the through-hole. A vehicle body engagement annular recess provided on the diameter enlargement tubular section is engaged with a peripheral edge around the through-hole.
Since the grommet itself is moved to a given direction with respect to the through-hole by drawing the grommet at the other side after inserting the grommet into the through-hole at the one side, the grommet is called as an one-motion grommet. Such grommet is generally used, since an attaching work of the grommet to the through-hole is easy.
The one-motion grommet has been disclosed in, for example, JP2003-32855 A. As shown in FIG. 7, a grommet 1 includes a smaller diameter tubular section 2 and a diameter enlargement tubular section 3 continued to the smaller diameter tubular section 2. The diameter enlargement tubular section 3 is provided on a larger diameter end side with a vehicle body engagement annular recess 4. The vehicle body engagement annular recess 4 is provided on the larger diameter end side with a vertical wall 4b and is provided on a smaller diameter side with a slant wall 4c. The walls 4b and 4c are opposed to each other across a groove 4a. A wire harness W/H is threaded into a hallow space in the diameter enlargement tubular section 3 from the smaller diameter tubular section 2 and a tape T is wound around an end of the smaller diameter tubular section 2 to secure the wire harness W/H to the grommet 1.
As shown in FIG. 7, in order to attach the grommet 1 to the through-hole H in a dash panel P, the smaller diameter tubular section 2 of the grommet 1 is inserted into the through-hole H from an engine room side (X), the smaller diameter tubular section 2 is drawn from a passenger room side (Y), the slant wall 4c is deformed inward to pass the through-hole H, the slant wall 4c recovered after passing and the vertical wall 4b are brought into close contact with the opposite sides of the vehicle panel P, and the vehicle body engagement annular recess 4 of the grommet 1 is installed in the through-hole H in the vehicle body panel P.